Scaling UP! H2O

445 Industrial Water Week 2025: Careers Friday

 Industrial Water Week 2025: Careers Friday brings the celebration back to first principles—mentors, disciplined training, and field diagnostics that go beyond the screen. Trace reflects on the people who invested in his craft, recognizes guest contributors across the week, and issues a practical challenge to invest in one new professional before the day ends.   Foundations that Compound A candid mentorship story anchors today’s episode. Trace recalls how early-career intimidation turned into decades of teaching fundamentals and math at AWT—proof that asking better questions grows better practitioners. Careers Friday becomes a prompt to text the person who built your foundation—and to be that person for someone else.  Fieldcraft Over Flash: A Detective H2O Lesson  The Detective H2O case distills high-value diagnostics for cooling systems: TTPC biocide can mask PTSA and fool controllers into overfeeding inhibitor; missing blowdown lockout during biocide feed wastes product; and stabilized bromine can become over-stabilized in long-HTI systems—driving ORP spikes, corrosion risk, and poor microbial control. Technology is essential, but interpretation is the craft.  Community Voices and a Career Pledge  Careers Friday features greetings from industry professionals and closes with Water You Know, a reminder that water often carries purchased energy (heat, cooling, pressure, flow, pre-treatment) that leaders must account for. The day ends with a clear ask: celebrate your mentors, share your origin story with #IWW25 and #ScalingUpH2O, and pledge to help one newcomer discover industrial water treatment.  Durable careers are built on shared knowledge, thoughtful diagnostics, and intentional mentorship. Use today to do all three.  Listen to the full conversation above. Explore related episodes below. Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!  Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!    Timestamps  02:20 — Opening: Industrial Water Week recap (Pretreatment, Boiler, Cooling, Wastewater) leading into Careers Friday. 03:15 — Community recognition: Scaling Up Nation “20,000+ members” and daily celebration via #IWW25 and #ScalingUpH2O. 05:20 — Careers Friday actions: take photos with equipment, mentors, or customers; share to celebrate the craft. 05:29 — Team traditions: the Industrial Water Week cake (including the infamous “water cake” anecdote). 09:16 — Mentorship story: meeting Bruce Ketrick Sr. and Jay Farmery; intimidation becomes investment. 13:12 — Writing the Fundamentals program with Mark Lewis to build durable entry-level foundations. 14:18 — Personal note: when Trace’s father passed, how Bruce showed up—mentorship beyond the classroom. 16:15 — Careers greetings begin (Lee Bainbrigge, SMS Environmental): be open-minded, keep learning, focus on customer assurance. 18:07 — Episode reference: Lee’s prior appearance (Ep. 370) for Legionella perspectives. 18:21 — Careers greeting (Kalpna Solanki): environmental operator roles as purposeful, global, and essential. 21:39 — Detective H2O — The Case of Knowing It All begins. 38:21 — CWT pathway: free prep resource and 100-question practice exam walkthrough . 42:46 — Water You Know with James McDonald 44:38 — Gratitude for James McDonald’s ongoing community impact. 45:04 — Careers Friday challenge: thank your mentors; post your origin story with #IWW25 and #ScalingUpH2O. 46:15 — Final pledge: help one person discover industrial water treatment this week.    Connect with Mike Taraszki  Phone: 510.368.4549  Email: michael.taraszki@wsp.com  Website: www.wsp.com  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michaeltaraszki/  linkedin.com/company/wsp/    Connect with Kalpna Solanki  Phone: 778.688.9196  Email: kalpnasolanki1980@gmail.com Water Environment Federation (WEF)  LinkedIn: in/kalpnasolanki    Connect with Lee Bainbrigge  Email: l.bainbrigge@sms-environmental.co.uk  Website: https://sms-environmental.co.uk/  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lbainbrigge/  linkedin.com/company/sms-environmental-ltd/    Connect with James Courtney Phone: +1 443 878 2407 Email: james@csctech2o.com Website: https://www.csctech2o.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-courtney-cwt-leed-ap-379a6877/    Connect with Laith Charles   Phone: 941-301-1309   Email: laith@ewatermark.net   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMuigehZdcquaY14QtGm    Connect with Mark Lewis  Phone: 704.322.5406 Email: MLewis@SELaboratories.com Website: https://www.selaboratories.com/ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mark-lewis-01a3b56    Connect with James McDonald   Email: james51471@gmail.com Website: chemaqua.com Industrialwaterweek.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-mcdonald-pe/     Links Mentioned  AWT (Association of Water Technologies)  Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses  Submit a Show Idea  The Rising Tide Mastermind  Industrial Water Week  Water Cake Recipe  031 The One with Mark Lewis  034 The Other One With Mark Lewis, CWT  062 The One with the Pulsafeeder Guy  112 The One Where Trace Is Interviewed By Mark Lewis  141 The One About Neglected Accounts  149 The One About Some of the Lesser-Used Technologies  224 The One About The Internet Of Things (IoT) Augmented Industrial Water Treatment  355 Backflow Prevention: Safeguarding Water Quality  362 Navigating 97-005: Insights and Impacts on Potable Water  370 Unlocking Legionella Solutions: Perspectives on Regulations and Best Practices  394 Visibility and Value: Enhancing Sustainability in Water Treatment  404 Eight Tips for Business Management: Part 1 – Essential Strategies  406 Eight Tips for Business Management: Part 2 – Essential Strategies    Water You Know with James McDonald   Question: What forms of purchased energy may be present in water?       

444 Industrial Water Week 2025: Wastewater Thursday

Wastewater isn’t an endpoint—it’s a decision point. On Wastewater Thursday, host Trace Blackmore, CWT sharpens the operator’s toolkit with field-tested lessons: dose by mechanism, verify by sampling discipline, and use wastewater’s fast feedback to protect quality, cost, and permits. Sampling discipline protects credibility Trace recounts an early-career moment when an inspector sampled the wrong location, triggering alarms. Immediate, methodical resampling—guided by logs and a clear process map—proved the system was in spec. The leadership takeaway: embed verification before escalation. Clear sampling points, time-stamped logs, and a rapid “reproduce the reading” drill turn uncertainty into clarity.  Mechanism over myth: coagulant control  In a new Detective H2O case, James McDonald explains why overfeeding coagulant collapses floc. When particles swing past neutral, like charges repel again and settling stalls. The fix is not “more chemistry,” but right-sizing dose to production and confirming with jar tests at the correct take-off point.  From discharge to resource  Greetings from past guests reinforce the shift under way. Arnaud Valleteau de Moulliac (Veolia Water Technology) frames wastewater as a local, decarbonized resource—with energy-positive plants and reuse as standard practice. Steve Russell (Kiewit) notes supply pressure will push even deeper recycling. Mark Lewis, CWT (Southeastern Laboratories) underscores wastewater’s advantage: “If you treat it, you see it.”  Make wastewater a reliable, fast-feedback control loop—rooted in charge balance, sampling rigor, and reuse thinking.  Listen to the full conversation above. Explore related episodes below. Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!    Timestamps:  02:17 — Welcome to Wastewater Thursday and the IWW25 theme: “From foundations to futures.” 03:03 — Why wastewater is “the restart”: cleaning for reuse and sustainability. 04:24 — “Every drop counts from influent to effluent” — defining the professional mandate. 05:12 — Field story setup: jar testing with Trace’s father; early lessons. 06:05 — Crisis call: bad regulatory number traced to wrong sampling location. 08:54 — Guest greeting: Arnaud Valleteau de Moulliac (Veolia) on energy-positive, reuse-driven futures. 10:25 — Guest greeting: Steve Russell (Kiewit) on permits, mass balances, and supply-driven recycling. 12:09 — Guest greeting: Mark Lewis, CWT (Southeastern Laboratories) on jar tests and product selection. 14:40 — Detective H2O: The case of too much of a good thing 20:17 — Mechanism lesson: charge neutralization window; like-charge repulsion returns when overdosed. 21:36 — Action: reduce dose; account for residence time; restore performance. 24:29 — IWW25 community prompt: post a safety-approved photo with wastewater equipment; use tags.   Connect with Mark Lewis   Phone: 704.322.5406   Email: MLewis@SELaboratories.com    Website: https://www.selaboratories.com/    LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mark-lewis-01a3b56    Connect with Steve Russell   Phone: 913.689.4533  Email: steve.russell@kiewit.com  Website: https://www.kiewit.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-russell-2b0a7960/    Connect with Arnaud Valleteau de Moulliac   Email: arnaud.valleteau@veolia.com Website: www.veoliawatertechnologies.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/arnaud-valleteau-de-moulliac-9b85353a/   www.linkedin.com/company/veolia-water-technologies/    Links Mentioned  AWT (Association of Water Technologies)  Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses  Submit a Show Idea  The Rising Tide Mastermind  031 The One with Mark Lewis  034 The Other One With Mark Lewis, CWT  112 The One Where Trace Is Interviewed By Mark Lewis  141 The One About Neglected Accounts  149 The One About Some of the Lesser-Used Technologies  382 Leading with Safety: How Veolia Embeds Health into Global Culture  396 Navigating Carbon Capture: Water Demands and Wastewater Solutions with Steve Russell  404 Eight Tips for Business Management: Part 1 – Essential Strategies  406 Eight Tips for Business Management: Part 2 – Essential Strategies 

443 Industrial Water Week 2025: Cooling Wednesday

 Cooling Wednesday is about performance, protection, and proof. Trace Blackmore invites the Nation to get hands-on with cooling equipment and share field photos while offering a practical reminder: learn to navigate the chiller’s user interface—because it’s your fastest route to actionable diagnostics, documentation, and energy impact. Reading the Chiller UI—From Intimidation to Insight Modern microprocessor interfaces reveal real-time and historical data that matter to heat transfer: temperatures, loading, and power trends. If you’ve avoided the panel out of fear of “shutting something down,” ask a chiller tech to walk you through the specific unit on site. Once comfortable, log key parameters on every visit and use the trend history to spot changes before they become outages. Proving Value with Clean Heat Transfer and Measured Energy For new or troubled accounts, record energy use during dirty conditions, then maintain the same measurements as the system is cleaned and stabilized. Month-over-month comparisons at similar loads become hard proof that treatment quality translates to lower operating costs—and that contract value aligns with measurable savings. Cooling Wisdom from the Field Guest greetings highlight real-world lessons: avoid shipping sample bottles in flimsy packaging (they’re heavier full than empty), respect the complexity of cooling treatment by breaking it into critical actions, and remember that underfeeding biocides invites biofilm—and problems like foaming—while proper dosing and verification (e.g., dip slides) restores stability. Celebrate—and Document Share your favorite cooling tower or chiller photo with #IWW25 and #ScalingUPH2O. Then, turn celebration into discipline: capture UI data, maintain trend logs, and use the numbers to defend decisions, budgets, and results. Listen to the full conversation above. Explore related episodes below. Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!   Timestamps   02:01 — Kicking off Cooling Wednesday and the #IWW25 photo invite (show your cooling towers/chillers). Why it matters: community learning and pride in craft. 03:22 — Why cooling matters: performance, protection, livability. Why it matters: framing the operational stakes of heat transfer. 03:46 — Willis Carrier’s 1902 humidity control origin story. Why it matters: cooling began as a manufacturing quality solution. 09:54 — Guest greeting: Juan Menezes (Nalco Water, an Ecolab company) on a low-pH excursion and recovery. Why it matters: pH control and response discipline. 11:13 — Guest greeting: Michael Lowenstein (QLabs) PSA on shipping Legionella samples securely. Why it matters: sample integrity = valid data. 12:22 — Guest greeting: Mike Standish (Radical Polymers/MFG) on complexity, simplifying actions, and predictive AI. Why it matters: clarity first; analytics next. 17: 11 – Detective H2O: The Case of Unwanted Foam Party 29:20 — Wrap: keep celebrating; post your cooling equipment; Wastewater Thursday is next. Why it matters: momentum through the week.   Connect with Juan Meneses   Phone: 337.309.9619  Email: jmeneses@ecolab.com  Website: Reinventing the Way Water is Managed | Nalco Water LinkedIn: Juan A. Meneses | LinkedIn    Connect with Michael Loewenstein  Phone: +1 513 207 4943  Email: MLoewenstein@qlaboratories.com  Website: Scientific Consulting for Q Labs LLC  LinkedIn: Michael Loewenstein | LinkedIn    Connect with Mike Standish  Phone: 423.316.9877  Email: mike.standish@radicalpolymers.com  Website: www.radicalpolymers.com  mfgchemical.com   LinkedIn: in/mike-standish-7890627    Links Mentioned  AWT (Association of Water Technologies)  Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses  Submit a Show Idea  The Rising Tide Mastermind  014 The One with Mike Standish  176 The One About Tagged Polymer Technologies  350 Polymer Perspectives: Understanding Copolymer Innovations in Water Treatment  377 Future of Legionella Monitoring: Strategies for Employing qPCR in a WMP  405 Cooling Water Innovation: Harnessing Wastewater for Sustainability  418 Maleic Acid-Based Corrosion Inhibitors: Expanding the Water Treatment Toolbox with Mike Standish       

442 Industrial Water Week 2025: Boiler Tuesday

 Boiler rooms reward clarity: how many BTUs from the flame actually arrive in steam—and stay there to do useful work? For Boiler Tuesday, Trace Blackmore, CWT, treats boiler care as heat-transfer management across the full train, from feedwater and deaeration to distribution and condensate return, with dry steam as the operational benchmark. Heat Transfer Is a Leadership Metric Dry steam isn’t a detail; it’s throughput. Steam on its worst day carries ~1,150 BTUs while hot water on its best day carries ~180 BTUs. When carryover creates wet steam, production loses energy at the point of use. Treating “BTUs-in-steam” as a shared KPI aligns maintenance, operations, and finance around the same outcome: efficient work.  The Steam Train: Protect the Interfaces  Trace maps the sequence—pretreatment → feedwater/DA → boiler → steam lines → condensate return—and explains where heat transfer is taxed when fouling or poor practices creep in. Recover condensate BTUs, verify deaerator performance, keep tube interfaces clean, and protect dryness at end users. Each interface preserved is energy returned to work.  Field Perspectives & Safety  Concise greetings from global practitioners reinforce fundamentals and vigilance. Barry Higgins underscores soft, high-quality water for “fluffy steam.” Ivan Morales contrasts OTSGs with conventional boilers and the implications for steam quality. Ben Frieders offers a memorable safety reminder: disciplined restarts and gasket integrity are non-negotiable in steam environments.  Boiler Tuesday is a call to manage heat-transfer efficiency, not just chemistry. Protect interfaces, speak in BTUs, and make dryness measurable where the work happens.  Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!    Timestamps   02:20 — Welcome and IWW25 context; Boiler Tuesday focus (why: frame the professional lens for the week).  03:46 — “Heat transfer efficiency managers”: defining the water treater’s job (why: reframes role beyond chemistry)  08:13 — Technology parity; execution and knowledge as differentiators (why: invest in people and practice).  09:59 — The train: feedwater/DA, boiler, lines, condensate return (why: systems thinking prevents local optimization)  12:52 — Guest greetings begin: international and cross-industry viewpoints (why: broaden operating context).  14:04 — Barry Higgins: soft water for “fluffy steam” (why: pretreatment quality → steam quality).  16:18 — Ivan Morales: OTSG vs conventional cycles and steam quality differences (why: choose tech with eyes open).  17:36 — Ben Frieders: post-inspection restart incident and safety lesson (why: operational discipline in steam).  20:19 — Detective H2O: The Case of Having The Blues 25:07 — Boiler Tuesday call to action: share photos, use IWW25 hashtag (why: community and practice sharing).    Connect with Barry Higgins  Phone: +353 87 987 8606  Email: bhiggins@aquachem.ie  Website: www.aquachem.ie   LinkedIn: in/barry-higgins-bagrsc-59030225    Connect with Ivan Morales  Website: www.ecolab.com/nalco-water/  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ivan-morales-mba-06793b5/  linkedin.com/company/nalco/    Connect with Ben Frieders   Phone: (317) 719-1452   Email: bfrieders@zinkan.com   Website: https://www.getchemready.com/    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminfrieders/    https://www.linkedin.com/company/getchemready/        Links Mentioned  AWT (Association of Water Technologies)  Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses  Submit a Show Idea  The Rising Tide Mastermind  Industrial Water Week  Industrial Water Week Scaling UP H2O Resource Page 353 Steam Boilers: Essential Checks, Part 1  354 Steam Boilers: Essential Checks, Part 2  366 Produced Water: Expert Perspectives and Practical Tips  420 Tapping Into Tech: How Ben Frieders Uses AI to Elevate Water Treatment Marketing 

441 Industrial Water Week 2025: Pretreatment Monday

 Industrial Water Week is here—and Day 1 is Pretreatment Monday. This special episode sets the tone for the week with specific ways to celebrate as a team, sharpen field practices, and share what you do with the people who matter most. Celebrate with purpose Host Trace Blackmore outlines simple, high-signal actions: take a field photo with your pretreatment gear, tag it #IWW25, #IndustrialWaterWeek, and #ScalingUPH2O, and post it today! Inside your company chat (Slack, group text, etc.), mark each day’s theme so momentum builds across Boiler Tuesday, Cooling Wednesday, Wastewater Thursday, and Careers Friday.  Foundations to futures  This year’s theme—Water’s Industrial Journey: From Foundations to Futures—is a prompt to audit your own growth. Trace describes the shift from “knowing” to “understanding” when fundamentals interlock, and challenges veterans and newcomers to keep learning in an ever-changing field.  You’ll hear a Pretreatment Monday greeting from Tessa Nge of HOH Water Technology, plus the debut of a new Detective H2O case, The Case of the Singing Canary. Follow along on LinkedIn and guess the guest voices—Trace reveals them on Friday.   Whether you bake a cake for your crew or host a brief daily stand-up, make the week visible. The work you do improves reliability, energy use, and water stewardship—worth celebrating and worth doing well.  Want to learn more about Industrial Water Week? Visit the free Resources dropdown at www.ScalingUpH2O.com to explore all things Pretreatment, Boilers, Cooling, Wastewater, and Careers in water.    Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!    Timestamps    01:53 - Trace Blackmore welcome everyone to the Industrial Water Week: Scaling UP H2O as official place to celebrate  05:55 – Field Photo Prompt: Post Pretreatment Equipment Shots; tag #IWW25, #IndustrialWaterWeek, and #ScalingUPH2O  19:29 – Guest Greeting: Tessa Nge (HOH Water Technology)   25:33 – Detective H2O: The Case of the Singing Canary    Connect with Tessa Nge  Phone: +1 224-545-7870  Email: tnge@hohwatertechnology.com  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessaskilton/      Links Mentioned  AWT (Association of Water Technologies)  Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses  Submit a Show Idea  The Rising Tide Mastermind  Industrial Water Week  Water Cake Recipe   Chloride Elution Study Procedure and Data Interpretation  Industrial Water Week Resources Page Ep 392 Breaking Barriers: How Diversity and Confidence Drive Growth in Water Treatment